Thin Lines (Donati Bloodlines Book 2) (9 page)

He died in her palm. All red-pink, with closed eyes,
and never having made a sound.

But for a moment, he got to be loved. Emma got to
touch him, apologize for having failed again, and she got to love him.

She had people all around her.

They watched and never said a thing.

She still felt alone.

“Where in the fuck were you?”

Emma blinked awake, and rubbed at her eyes to clear
the sleepiness from her eyes. A soreness settled in her lower half as she
shifted on the bed. That was to be expected, apparently. The baby might have
been extremely premature, but she still delivered him. Her body had still
expelled a baby, and the placenta. It needed time to heal.

The arguing voices outside of her hospital room became
louder, confusing her further.

“I stayed to finish—”

“That was more important to you?”

Calisto.

“Why is that picture of the drop of water on the
door?” Affonso asked.

“It’s meant to tell the other nurses and doctors who
might enter the room, unaware of the outcome of the delivery, that a child was
lost. It also tells them to be quiet as they pass, for Emma’s sake.”

“Ah.”

“Is that all you have to say right now?”

“I assumed you would call, Cal,” Affonso muttered.

“I did. I told you what was happening!”

“She didn’t need me here for that. She could do it
alone.”

The coldness of Affonso’s tone didn’t even shock Emma.

“You should have been here,” Calisto snarled.

“To what, see a dead child be born?” Affonso asked. “I
did that once with my first wife. I wasn’t needed, Calisto.”

“You … You are—”

“What?”

“Fucking useless,” Calisto finished darkly. “A poor
excuse for a man, never mind a father.”

“Well, you wouldn’t know, hmm?”

“Pardon?”

“You wouldn’t know. You and your mother never let me
be one.”

“I had a father,” Calisto replied coldly. “And I have
no doubt that he would have been far better than you, even though you never
gave him the chance to be one.”

“I don’t want to go into all this again.”

“No, you only want to do it when it’s suitable for
you.”

“Enough, Cal,” Affonso said dryly.

“She delivered your child. You should have been here
for her.”

“It was dead.”

“It was alive,” Calisto hissed. “I watched the baby
breathe
in her hands.”

“She didn’t need me. She wouldn’t have wanted me.”

“What she doesn’t need is a man who doesn’t care. And
you fit that bill perfectly,
zio
.”

Emma’s heart hurt, but she managed to keep quiet.

“I’ll leave her alone for a while and let her heal,”
Affonso murmured.

“You might want to take a trip downstairs, too.”

“What for?”

“The baby is waiting to be claimed in the morgue.
Because he was born alive, he is considered a live birth. He was named and
given a death certificate, like any other human being would be. There was only
one person who felt like they didn’t have to treat the child like he wasn’t a
fucking human, uncle.
You
. You felt like he was unworthy of your time
for his only moments on earth. You did that.”

“It wasn’t going to survive, Cal.”

“He. Not ‘it.’
He
.”

Emma wiped at the wetness streaking down her cheek.

“And what do you expect me to do down there at the
morgue?” Affonso asked.

“Claim him. Sign your name to his fucking birth
certificate like you should have done yesterday when he was born. Have him
transferred to the funeral home we use. Jesus Christ, you don’t even have to
look at him, Affonso. I will handle arrangements for the baby’s burial and for
Father Day to go over and bless him. But you will go down there and put your
name on his goddamn certificates as his father. It’s the least you can do after
everything.”

“What did she name him?” Affonso asked.

“She named him after you.”

“Why?”

“Because you wanted your boy,” Calisto snapped. “And
he’s the first, right? The
only
. She thought you would want him named
for his father.”

“
Calisto
.”

“Don’t touch me,
zio
.”

“
Tu sei il primo
.”

“
Mai
.”

Emma understood their words when they turned to
Italian, but she couldn’t compute what they meant. The men’s tones had turned
so pained—agonized. One begging, the other refusing.

“Cal,” Affonso said.

“Just go.”

The doctor—a new one this time—pointed at the 3D
diagram of a uterus with his index finger. He moved down where the cervix was
labeled and pointed.

“Part of the problem that caused this late miscarriage
was the placenta previa. It covered part of the neck of your cervix, Emma,
which would explain the occasional spotting you reported to your doctor. He had
it marked on your file for the ultrasound technician to check when that came
about, but you didn’t make it that far. It should have been picked up, but the
placenta might have grown larger, covering part of the cervix, after the amnio-ultrasound,
and here we are.”

Emma stayed quiet in the chair across from the doctor,
unsure of what to say. It felt better when she said nothing at all, frankly.

“And that was it?” Affonso asked beside her.

“No. We discovered something else that probably would
have caused us some issues or concerns later on in the pregnancy.”

“Which was what?”

“Emma,” the doctor said quietly, directing his
statement directly at her and not Affonso.

She didn’t look up from her lap. “Yes?”

“You have what we call a weak cervix. It’s often
caused by a shortened neck of the uterus, making the cervix thinner than it
should be. When the baby, or say a placenta, begins to put pressure down on the
cervix, it starts to open prematurely.”

“What does that mean?” Affonso asked.

The doctor sighed. “It means that any future
pregnancies Emma might have are considered high risk. There is something we can
do, but like anything, it comes with risks, and—”

“So this will happen again?” Affonso interrupted.

“It’s possible that nearing the eighteen to twenty
week mark in a future pregnancy, her cervix may start to open. But like I was
trying to say, we can put a—”

Affonso stood fast from his chair, his expression a
blank slate and his eyes cold. “Thank you. Emma, I’ll be in the car. Whenever
you’re ready.”

Emma didn’t bother to say goodbye to her husband
before he went. Once the door was closed, she felt better. The farther away
Affonso was from her, the better it was. Alone with the fertility specialist,
Emma finally felt like she could speak safely to ask her questions.

She just didn’t know where to start. A week after her
delivering the baby boy, she was still walking around in a daze half of the
time. She had been released from the hospital only two days after and sent home
with instructions about blood clots, and other things she didn’t care to think
about.

“This miscarriage is unrelated to the first,” the
doctor said quietly. “I looked over the bloodwork and tissue samples that were
taken from the first.”

“And?” Emma asked.

“There was definitely some hormonal issues that were a
cause for concern. It’s never a definite at that early of a stage. That’s the
problem with early terminations. We can never quite say for sure what the
problem likely was. This time, however, we know.”

“And it will happen again.”

“It’s likely.”

“So I am broken,” she mumbled.

“No, not broken. There’s a procedure we can do—a
stitch we can put in your cervix, and add in bedrest to that, and it’s probable
that you can carry to term, or very close to it.”

“But it’s not a guarantee.”

“Nothing is,” the doctor said softly.

Wasn’t that the truth?

She had a baby to bury.

Her body was useless.

She didn’t even want to get out of bed.

Affonso wouldn’t look at her, not that she gave a
fuck.

“You can have a child, but it may take some planning
and close monitoring, Emma,” the doctor told her.

She didn’t really hear him.

“Thank you,” Emma said.

She stood from her chair, feeling exhausted with the
day. She didn’t want to be here with the doctors, their tests, never mind
having this very conversation. It was like reliving the week before all over
again. She could still feel her boy in her palm, tiny, fragile, and helpless
because she couldn’t carry him like she was supposed to.

“Emma, wait,” the doctor said.

“What now?”

“A couple of things.”

“I would like to get out of here,” Emma said, sighing.

“I can see that. First, I wanted to say that it helps
after a loss like this for women to seek therapy. Often times, women find
themselves in the midst of a depression, blaming themselves, and not knowing
how to climb their way out of it. It might help to find someone to talk to so
that you can deal with how you feel about all of this. Not just the birth and
losing the baby, but your future, deciding to have more children, and handling
what that means.”

Emma waved it all off. She wasn’t in the mood to
discuss therapy. She was heartbroken, but she wasn’t crazy or depressed.

Her heart simply hurt.

 “And the second thing?” she asked, grabbing her bag
off the floor.

The doctor frowned. “Should you find yourself pregnant
again, by choice or accident, it’s very important that your doctor know as soon
as possible, to begin monitoring the thickness of your cervix. This can be
prevented from happening to you a second time. Do you understand?”

She understood.

She just didn’t see how it mattered, now.

There would be no more children. Not if she had any
say.

Calisto

“Well?” Affonso demanded, unaffected as ever. “What of
it, Father?”

Calisto bristled, hearing his uncle’s rudeness toward
the priest. It wasn’t like Affonso to be so short with a man of God, but he
hadn’t exactly wanted to do this at all. Not this day, the small, private
service, or the burial that would follow for his dead son.

This entire thing had been done by Calisto’s hand and
only for Emma’s benefit.

It wasn’t about Affonso’s wants.

“I promise to make it short, Affonso. I have a call to
make. Can you entertain yourself for a few minutes until I’m ready to come
out?” the priest asked.

Affonso nodded, turned on his heel, and left the small
office without a backward glance. It took all the patience that Calisto had
inside not to glare at his uncle’s back.

Father Day didn’t miss Calisto’s irritation for a
second.

“He’s not up for this, I take it?”

“No,” Calisto said.

“That’s fine. His wife needs it more, I suspect.”

Calisto frowned. “She doesn’t talk a lot.”

“I know. I tried to speak with her earlier. It’s like
she’s somewhere else entirely.”

“It was … difficult.”

“Difficult” didn’t begin to encompass the emotional
impact of watching a woman birth a child so small that it fit in the palm of
her hand. The word couldn’t possibly explain how heart-wrenching it was to see
that same woman beg doctors not to make her birth the child, only to take him
away from her because he wouldn’t be able to live outside her body.

But it was the best fucking word Calisto had.

For the moment.

“You were with her,” Father Day said. “That’s what you
told me when you called.”

“Yeah.”

“Eighteen weeks is not enough time for a child. Most
are born dead.”

“I’m aware. He breathed. He was not stillborn. He
breathed for nearly a minute.”

Father Day pursed his lips. “I’ll give him the
blessing with the holy water. The same as I would any stillborn child. I can’t
do much else, Calisto.”

“It’ll be enough.”

“For the young woman, I certainly hope so. Perhaps if
her husband would act like the child’s life had some substance, like he was
real, she might allow herself to feel the same way.”

Calisto wondered if that was part of Emma’s problem in
grieving for her child. Was her husband’s lack of empathy the reason why she
had shut the rest of the world out? Did she feel like she wasn’t allowed to be
sad over a child that her husband didn’t consider worthy?

“I still have to make that call,” the priest said.

“Sure.”

Calisto stepped out of the office and closed the door
behind him. He walked out to the main floor of the church, over the altar and
down the steps. Emma sat quietly in the front row in a black ensemble that fit
the day. She was alone, unsurprisingly.

Affonso was nowhere to be seen.

Passing the small white casket at the bottom of the
altar, Calisto took a seat beside Emma. She barely reacted to his presence, and
her gaze never left the spot on the floor.

“The priest is almost finished,” Calisto said.

He didn’t even get a blink from her.

It bothered him to see Emma so distant and out of
touch. She said very little when she did speak, and her voice was always soft.

“Emmy?”

Emma lifted her head, and her eyes were dry. “What,
Cal?”

“Where did Affonso go?”

“He muttered something about needing a smoke.”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She simply stared at him, saying nothing.

He took that as a no.

Digging in his pocket, Calisto pulled out the familiar
item that the priest had given him months ago. He rolled the black beads of the
rosary between his fingers, and let the cross swing between his knees.

“I don’t know what to do,” he heard Emma say under her
breath.

His chest tightened. “About what?”

“How I feel.”

“Being sad is expected, Emmy. I’d be more worried if
you felt nothing.”

“Sometimes I do. But mostly, I feel like a failure.
For him, I failed.”

Calisto assumed she meant Affonso. “You have to know
you’re worth more than your ability to give that man a child. You do know that,
don’t you?”

“Not him. The baby.”

“Oh.” Calisto swallowed back the thickness in his
throat. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Technically, it was. I didn’t push the doctor the day
before, when I told him I was having pain. I kept ignoring it all morning.
Maybe if I had—”

“Don’t do that, Emmy. How were you to know? That’s not
fair.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“You didn’t fail,
dolcezza
.”

Emma let out a shaky sigh. “How else am I supposed to
feel? The one thing that all women do, the thing they should be able to do, I
can’t. Not without killing the baby in the process.”

Calisto didn’t know how to respond to that. He noticed
that her eyes were still dry, too. If he had to guess, he would say that was a
part of her grieving process. She’d cried a lot during the birth, and shortly
after. Maybe she just wasn’t ready to cry again.

“Here,” Calisto said quietly.

“Hmm?”

He grabbed her hand in his. For a moment, he reveled
in the feeling of her smooth skin against his and the warmth of her palm.
Calisto slipped the black rosary into her hand. Without considering much of his
actions or who might see, he interwove their fingers.

Nobody else was there to hold her.

Nobody else was being strong for her.

Nobody else seemed to care.

Calisto wanted Emma to know that he did.

Emma glanced down at their connected hands, staying
silent. But her bottom lip trembled, and a wetness coated her bottom lashes as
she sniffed away the tears. She put her head on his shoulder, and Calisto
didn’t try to move her away.

Whatever Emma needed, he would give.

Or try to.

“I’m so sorry,” he told her.

“Me, too.”

Calisto put his arm around Emma’s shaking shoulders,
and drew her closer into his side. She could hide there for as long as she
needed, he didn’t mind. Turning his head to the side, he brushed his lips over
her temple, kissing her skin quickly and repeating his apology.

No one would see, surely. Affonso was probably still
outside in his own world.

Calisto kissed Emma’s skin again. Out of the corner of
his eye, he noticed a shadowed form standing in the back hallway of the church.
He recognized the quiet priest who stayed right where he was, mostly hidden,
and watched the two in the pew.

He knew what the man was seeing.

Calisto holding someone who wasn’t his, offering
comfort to a woman who was taken and not free to share her affections with
someone else. It probably looked like the two were close, likely closer than
what would be acceptable.

He still held her.

He let her cry.

Calisto would take his penance later.

The tiny coffin was lowered into the small grave with
care and grace. Calisto stood back from it all, beyond his uncle’s and Emma’s
view, to give them some sense of privacy.

Or her, at least.

Once the priest had said his final blessing, and the
first shovelful of dirt was tossed into the grave, Affonso turned away. He bent
his head and said something to Emma. She answered him back with a nod and
nothing more.

Shortly after Affonso passed Calisto by, Emma turned
away from the grave and followed behind her husband. Calisto watched them both
disappear into the waiting town car, and waited for it to depart the cemetery
before he too would take his leave.

It seemed appropriate to let them go first.

“Despite what the church may say,” Father Day said as
he saddled up beside Calisto, “I do believe that lost babies, or unbaptized
children, go to heaven. How can they not? They’re innocent—some never old
enough to understand the sins of men. God allowed them to be created for their
purpose.”

“Is that purpose to die?” Calisto asked.

“Their time may be short, but that doesn’t make their
lives any less poignant, Calisto. I can’t believe that God would allow babies
to be lost, or born and die without their rites, only to deny them His gift of
love and heaven. I just can’t.”

“Thank you for today.”

“I see you’re missing something,” the priest noted.

Calisto looked down at his empty hands. “Missing
what?”

“My rosary.”

Shit.

“I let Emma hold onto it.”

The priest chuckled. “I don’t need it back. He is
always listening, regardless of what I am holding when I talk to Him.”

“It seemed to help her.”

“Mmhmm. As it did you.”

Calisto wet his lips, knowing what the priest was
dancing around. He wanted to talk about what he had seen between Calisto and
Emma at the church. Calisto didn’t want to talk about it.

“I should go,” Calisto said.

“You should be careful,” the priest responded. “You
should be mindful of your affections, your care, and how far you let it go. Do
not walk on lines so thin that they’ll break under your weight, Calisto. He
will always forgive you, but it is earthly men who will not offer mercy as
easily. Keep that in mind.”

“I haven’t done anything, Father.”

The priest didn’t seem like he believed him. Calisto
had never been very good at lying to the man.

“I think you have. I think months ago when you came to
me with a confession about taking something that didn’t belong to you, that
something was your uncle’s fiancée at the time. I now understand better, when I
think about you telling me how you felt nothing for the person you stole from.”

Calisto clenched his fists at his sides, refusing to
look the priest in the eye. “Do you want me to confess properly?”

“Confession is meant for those who are ready to
repent; sins you do not intend to repeat knowingly. I believe that when you
came to me the first time, you didn’t plan on something happening again. Can
you tell me you believe the same thing today?”

Calisto couldn’t.

“Think of the sacrifices your mother made for you,
Calisto,” Father Day added. “Did she turn her cheek for all those years, only
to have you put in a grave beside hers before it was your time?”

Ouch.

Those words practically cut Calisto apart.

“I think more than anyone else, my mother would
understand,” Calisto said quietly.

“I can’t say the same. When you’re ready to see me
again, you know where to find me. What will you do now?”